This is Spectator Radio, the Spectator's curated podcast collection.

Hello and welcome to Women of Balls, where I, Katie Balls, speak to today's trailblazers.

Today I'm delighted to be joined by Kay Burley.

Burley is a Sky News founder member, host of the self-titled Kay Burley show,

and currently holds the record for hosting more

hours of live television than any other news presenter. In her broadcast career, Burley has earned a

reputation for her at times tough interviewing style. Coming up at a time when there were a few

female faces on the news, Labour's Harriet Harmon has heralded Burley's rise as a source of jubilation for

feminists, describing her career path as totally groundbreaking. So Kay, thank you very much for

joining us today. Thank you. I thought to start, we could rewind and go back to how you got to where

you are really. And I mean, you grew up in Wigan your parents worked in a

cardboard box factory and you left school at 17 to work at your local newspaper I did

and you credited your English literature teacher for encouraging you to quit your A

levels which isn't what you would normally what happened she didn't she didn't do

that what she did was she gave me the confidence to believe that I

could do anything that I wanted to do. So I did well in my English language, in the English literature.

We studied Macbeth. I still remember it and I still remember all the soliloquies vividly. I can

recite them to my son. And when I wanted

to not study human biology and sociology and instead go and work for my local paper, for which I'd

done two weeks' job experience, she encouraged me to do whatever I wanted to do. I didn't get the

job on the local paper,

but I wrote to 80 other newspapers up and down the country and banged on the door until one of

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